Graveside Memories
by HarvestGirl
Summary: Spike visit's Joyce's grave and thinks about their past. Reposted- it's all there now!


The characters of BtVS do not belong to me ****

The characters of BtVS do not belong to me. They belong to the great and powerful Oz. Oops, I mean Joss.

This is sort of a weird idea, and a lot of people may not go for it. This time, hopefully, all of the story will show up J 

Graveside Memories

Spike walked through the cemetery very quietly. His senses were working overtime. Not only did he not want to run into any vampires; he definitely didn't want to run into a certain blonde slayer. 

He made his way along, knowing exactly where he was going. He had watched the burial two days ago, hidden under a heavy blanket. He didn't care that the sun had been slowly burning him. In truth he hadn't even noticed. 

No one had noticed him standing there. They were all too wrapped up in their own pain. Then he saw Angel come. For once, Spike didn't care. He wanted someone to comfort Buffy. He wished he had someone that would comfort him. On reflex, he felt disgusted with himself for having such a- human- feeling.

Spike saw the marker and walked over to it. He sat crossed leg in front of her plot and read her name over and over again. "Beloved Mother" he said aloud. "God Joyce. Do you think they'll ever know how much more you were?"

He leaned over to press a kiss to her grave. Bloody tears fell from his eyes, and he rested his forehead against her name.

1975

Los Angeles

He didn't just stalk his prey. He knew before he even began the hunt that he would win. He didn't know how not to win. He was responsible for killing two Slayers. No vampire had done that since him. He currently held the title. He was infinitely certain that he got what he went after. He had yet to let dinner get away.

It was clear this would be easy, but Spike still loved the hunt. She was crying. That's what first turned his attention to her. Little girls shouldn't be out this late, anyway, Spike thought with amusement. What a way to learn a lesson, huh. He quietly got closer and closer to her. 

'It isn't fair!' Joyce thought to herself 'How can life be this unfair?' She thought about the injustice of it all and began crying harder. The perfect Arlene. The perfect sister. Perfect grades and perfect attitude and perfect body and perfect everything! "Why can't you be more like your sister?" "It's amazing you two are even related" Joyce cried harder. Well her perfect sister can take her perfect grades and go to her perfect school in Illinois! Maybe then everyone would stop comparing them! 

Joyce stopped by a tree, and wiped her eyes. There was movement out of the corner of her eye, and as she turned, a man jumped out and tackled her to the ground. Joyce started screaming. She couldn't stop it, she couldn't move. "Oh, God! I'm going to die. This is it. Oh, God, I don't want to die! What is wrong with his face?" she thought in her head. 

Then the weight was suddenly gone. She turned and saw two men fighting. She didn't know what to do. She thought she should help the man that had saved her, but she didn't know which one was which. She scurried over to the base of the tree and sucked in air. She didn't think about the wrong man winning, or running away. In fact, she didn't have a clear thought in her mind.

Spike was pissed. How dare some minion try to steal his dinner. In one swift move, he broke the neck of the other vamp, and it exploded into ash.

He looked back up to see his dinner watching with huge terrified eyes. He smiled to himself and made his face relax. "There now. Did the little vampire scare you?"

"Va-va-vampire?" She asked. She couldn't quite see him, and she was getting more frightened every second.

"Yeah." Spike said slowly, "The stories are true. Not always accurate, but true."

"Okay, I have to go now!" Joyce jumped to her feet, but before she could take a step, the man was beside her.

"Now that just isn't polite. I just saved your hide, and this is how you repay me?"

British. Joyce thought, definitely British. The clouds passed over the sky, and the moonlight illuminated his face.

"Oh, wow. You're beautiful." Joyce said, with wonder in her eyes. She thought that Arlene's boyfriend was the beautiful boy in the world, but she was soooooo wrong.

Her admission seemed to make the vampire nervous. "I've been called a lot of things, luv, but beautiful certainly isn't one of them." He tried to laugh it off, but couldn't. "You really shouldn't be out here this late. It's dangerous." It was the first time Spike had to remind himself of what he was. 

"I feel safe." Joyce said a little too quickly. Extremely embarrassed, she said, "I mean, you just saved my life. I feel safe with you. Now." 

"Bugger all! Listen, you don't know what kind of things are out here. A little girl like you could get into some serious trouble." Spike did not like where this was going. At all. He needed to bite her. Just to go ahead and bite her and get it over with. 'Okay, why am I not biting her?" he thought to himself. 

Spike had the strangest feeling that he couldn't. Even if she were to turn her back to him, just for a moment, he still wouldn't be able to bite her. It had to be the eyes, he thought. He was definitely a sucker for brown eyes. But Spike didn't buy it. He killed thousands of people with brown eyes. It was her eyes. Eyes that looked up at him and told him he was beautiful, and didn't have a hint of fear in them. Not for him, for the monster he knew he was.

"Listen, I'll walk you home." Spike motioned for her to walk ahead. "What were you crying about, back there?"

Joyce looked embarrassed. "I was just upset. It seems so stupid now."

"Probably isn't stupid if it upsets you so much."

Joyce smiled up at him. "It's my sister. Well, I guess it's more like my entire family. They want me to be my sister. And she's not really that great. Well, except for the fact that she's perfect." She finished glumly

"And you aren't?" Spike didn't even question his actions, he just reached out and put an arm around her shoulder.

"Hardly. My grades are just average, my attention span is almost non-existent, and I sneak out a few times and they act like the world is over. Arlene never sneaks out. Never gets in trouble. When I have a daughter, I won't care what her grades are like. And I won't care if she sneaks out!"

"Yes you will, luv. You'll care and then you'll ground her."

"No. I won't. I'll be the coolest mother. My daughter will be able to tell me anything, and she won't even have to think about doing it. I'll be her best friend."

"Well, that's just fine in theory, but it won't happen. 'Cause you'll love her so much that you won't want anything to happen to her. And she'll hide stuff from you because she'll want to stay out of trouble. It's just the way the world works."

"Well, this is my house." Spike walked her up the driveway and to the door. "I'd ask you in, but I don't think my parents would really go for that."

"Yeah, I'd say that's a pretty safe bet."

"You're really easy to talk to, you know that? And I meant what I said. You are beautiful." She turned to go back inside. "Um, are there really vampires in LA?"

Spike stepped towards her until their bodies were touching. "No. It's all been a dream. You'll go upstairs and go to bed, and when you wake in the morning, you'll realize that this has all been a bad, bad dream." He turned away from her then, he shouldn't have been able to hear her, because her next words were so softly spoken, but he did.

"No. It was the best dream."

Sunnydale

1997

He finally had the Slayer. He knew it. He was going to bash her pretty little slayer head into a million pieces.

WHAM! Spike fell backwards. It felt like he had been hit in the head with a…an Axe? He looked towards the woman holding the axe in her hands. "You get the hell away from my daughter!"

He couldn't believe it. It couldn't be. His was in the shadows, so he knew she couldn't tell who he was, but he knew her. It was the same eyes. Joyce.

He can even see the surprised expression in her eyes when he came by the house not long after their second meeting. There would have been joy there too, but the understanding came a little bit too quickly, followed by fear. He didn't think she ever told Buffy about their short past. It was an unspoken bond between them that no one would ever know about.

Sunnydale

2001

Spike let out a half laugh at the memory. Parent-Teacher nights would never be the same again. But that's how she came back into his life. Carrying an axe. He wouldn't have had it any other way. It had taken a lot of time, and a chip he thought grimly, but they had finally become friends again. To this day, Joyce was still the only person to look at him as a man. Not a demon, but a man. 

He would miss her. More than anyone would ever guess. 

Spike had hoped, maybe a little bit, that Dawn's spell had worked. He would have taken a lifetime of hatred from Buffy, for one last word with Joyce. He kissed the marker once more and left, his dead heart feeling as heavy as it did when he left her twenty-six years ago.


End file.
